The paper ID card is no longer valid: how to replace it (in Rome, by email)

If you still have the paper identity card — the folded cardboard one — the date printed on it no longer counts. Since 3 August 2026 that document has stopped being valid, even if it said 2029.

It is not your municipality's decision: it comes from a European regulation, Regulation (EU) 2025/1208 of 12 June 2025. Paper cards do not have the machine-readable zone the new rules require, so they all go out of use together.

What you can still do with it, and until when

Decree-Law 108 of 26 June 2026, explained by the Interior Ministry circular of 30 June 2026, introduced two partial extensions. They are narrow ones: read them carefully.

What you need it for	How long the paper card still works
Leaving Italy, entering another European Union country	No longer valid since 3 August 2026
Essential services: healthcare, public administration, banking, service of legal documents	Until 31 January 2027
Relationships — public or private — already in place before 3 August 2026	Until the expiry date printed on the document

In plain words: until 31 January 2027 the paper card still works for the doctor, the public office and the bank. From 1 February 2027 it only works inside relationships you had already opened before August. For everything else you need the electronic identity card, the CIE.

If you are a foreign citizen, the part that really concerns you

The travel part changes little for you: an identity card issued to a non-EU citizen is always marked "not valid for travel", the electronic one included. To travel you have your passport and your residence permit; the identity card is there to identify you in Italy.

And that is exactly where it hurts. Without a valid identity document everyday things stop: opening or using a bank account, being identified at a counter, activating or renewing your SPID digital identity, enrolling your children, signing a rental or employment contract. It is not a formality: it is the document you are asked for everywhere.

What you need for the CIE

You apply at the municipality where you are resident. If you are a non-EU citizen you need:

• your valid passport;
• your valid residence permit, or the receipt of the renewal application;
• a recent passport-format photo;
• your tax code or health card;
• the paper card to hand back, if you still have it.

The basic cost of the CIE is 16.79 euros, plus your municipality's fixed and administrative fees. Replacing the card before the date printed on it is not a duplicate and does not mean paying the fees twice. The card is not handed to you at the counter: it arrives within six working days at the address you give, and the receipt they hand you works as an identity document until it does.

In Rome: two routes, and they are not the same

Roma Capitale has opened an extraordinary plan for the replacement, running from May to September 2026, with afternoon openings and dedicated weekend days. But there are two ways to reach an appointment, and it is worth not picking the wrong one.

If you are a priority case — that is, you have no passport, or you have a documented urgency (health reasons, an imminent trip, a public competition) — the request is sent by email to your own Municipio, at the addresses below. The email must contain your first name, surname, tax code, a telephone number and the reason for the urgency. The registry office checks and assigns you the first free slot, in the order the emails arrive.

If you are in neither situation, the normal route is still to book the electronic identity card appointment on the Interior Ministry's system, prenotazionicie.interno.gov.it, where you have to register first. For the weekend openings the slots are released on Friday morning from 9 a.m. and go quickly.

Send the email from your own address and keep the reply: it is your proof that you applied.

The email addresses, one per Municipio

Municipio	Email address
I	sostituzionecic_urgenze.mun01@comune.roma.it
II	sostituzionecic_urgenze.mun02@comune.roma.it
III	sostituzionecic_urgenze.mun03@comune.roma.it
IV	sostituzionecic_urgenze.mun04@comune.roma.it
V	sostituzionecic_urgenze.mun05@comune.roma.it
VI	sostituzionecic_urgenze.mun06@comune.roma.it
VII	sostituzionecic_urgenze.mun07@comune.roma.it
VIII	sostituzionecic_urgenze.mun08@comune.roma.it
IX	sostituzionecic_urgenze.mun09@comune.roma.it
X	sostituzionecic_urgenze.mun10@comune.roma.it
XI	sostituzionecic_urgenze.mun11@comune.roma.it
XII	sostituzionecic_urgenze.mun12@comune.roma.it
XIII	sostituzionecic_urgenze.mun13@comune.roma.it
XIV	sostituzionecic_urgenze.mun14@comune.roma.it
XV	sostituzionecic_urgenze.mun15@comune.roma.it

Only the final number changes, but make sure you write to the right one: an email to the wrong Municipio is not forwarded, it is lost. And look at the name of the address — urgenze: it is the priority channel, not the general counter.

And which Municipio am I in?

Rome is divided into fifteen Municipi, and yours depends on the address where you are resident, not on the name people use for the neighbourhood. Not knowing it is normal: it is not written on your identity card and it does not match the postcode.

There is an official tool from the city that answers in a minute: the viario of Roma Capitale, the list of every street in the city, where each street shows the Municipio it belongs to. We explain how to use it step by step in the related guide at the foot of this page.

If you would rather ask a person: the Comune di Roma phone number is 060606, and at the Municipio's URP desk they will tell you whether you are in their territory. Ask before you send the email, not after.

If you do not live in Rome

The rule is national, but the queue is municipal: the 3 August date applies to everybody, and each municipality organised the backlog its own way. Among the big cities the approaches differ so much that what they told you in Rome is of no use in Milan.

Milan: they come looking for you

It is the opposite of the Roman case. The City of Milan ran a proactive campaign: it contacts people who still hold a paper card directly and offers an appointment already booked, which you confirm or move in a few steps. You can also book the appointment yourself, and to do that you do not need SPID.

Paper cards expiring after 3 August numbered around ninety thousand; by the end of June the city reckoned that almost seven people in ten had completed or at least started the switch.

So, if you are in Milan: check your messages and your post, including what looks like advertising. And if nobody has come looking for you, do not wait any longer — booking yourself is possible.

Naples: afternoons and Saturdays

Naples chose extraordinary opening hours at the registry desks: during the campaign, every Tuesday afternoon from 15:00 to 18:00, plus one open day a month on a Saturday, from 8:30 to 14:00. It is the model designed for people who work and cannot take time off during the week.

Smaller municipalities: open days

Outside the big cities the prevailing model is the same as Naples, on a smaller scale: dedicated days and afternoons, almost always by appointment. Many have done it — from Terni to Cosenza, from La Spezia to Reggio Calabria to Imola — with their own dates, decided municipality by municipality and announced on the municipality's own site.

The three questions to ask your municipality

Search your municipality's site for «sostituzione carta d'identità cartacea» and, if you do not find the answer, call the public relations office and ask exactly these three things:

1. How do I book? Online calendar, dedicated email address, telephone — or are you reaching out to citizens yourselves?
2. Is there a fast lane for people without a passport? It is the question that matters most to a foreigner: with no CIE and no passport you are left with no document at all.
3. Are there extraordinary openings or open days? If you work, they are the only way not to lose a day's pay.

Be careful how the extension is described to you

The extension to 31 January 2027 is real, but it is narrower than it is usually made to sound, on two points that concern you directly:

• it applies only on national territory and only to essential services — healthcare, banking, dealings with public administration. It is not a general postponement;
• for travel abroad it is worth nothing. From 3 August 2026 the paper card no longer gets you out of Italy, and the Italian extension can do nothing about that: the deadline is set by a European regulation.

For you the second point weighs less than it seems — a foreign citizen's CIE is not valid for travel abroad anyway, and you travel on your passport. But the first does: «there is an extension anyway» is not an answer if you need the document for something that is not an essential service.

The provisional document: not for you

You will read around that the decree created a provisional identity document, valid for six months and not renewable. Before you waste time on it: it is not issued to foreign citizens.

The reason lies in what it is for. That document exists for people who have to travel abroad and find themselves without a valid identity card and without a passport — a stopgap for travelling. But an Italian identity card issued to a foreign citizen is never valid for travel: you go abroad on your own country's passport. The problem it solves does not exist for you, so neither does the document.

So, if you are a foreign citizen, the only route is the CIE. And if you have a trip coming up, the things to check are not your identity card but your passport and your residence permit.

What to do now, in order

• Look at the card you have. If it is cardboard, this is your situation. If it is a plastic card with a chip, it is already the CIE and you have nothing to do.
• Check your residence permit. If it has expired and you do not have the renewal receipt, that comes first: without it they will not issue the identity card.
• Send the request now, without waiting for 31 January 2027: appointments go in order of arrival, and the closer the date, the longer the queue.
• Note two dates: the appointment, and the day the card arrives. If it has not arrived after six working days, call the office.

This guide explains the national rule and, in the final part, the Roma Capitale procedure in force at the last check. Every municipality organises the replacement its own way, and the Rome plan is extraordinary and time-limited: before you move, check your own municipality's page, linked among the sources. If you have a genuine urgency — a trip, a competition, a deadline — say so in the email: priority is provided for.